Buildings may be constructed with fire-resistive walls, floors, floor/ceiling assemblies, and grease and air ducts. Building safety codes promulgated by a variety of regulatory agencies may mandate the use of such fire-resistive structures, which resist the spread of a fire in one room to adjacent rooms. A penetration of a fire-resistive structure is an opening created through such a structure to accommodate items such as electrical cables, telecommunications cables, conduit, pipe, ducts, and the like. Penetrations breach the integrity of the fire-resistive structure, potentially allowing flames, deadly gases and toxic smoke to pass from one room to adjoining rooms or throughout the building.
Firestopping systems are field-erected constructions consisting of one or more devices and/or materials that protect against the passage of flames, deadly gases and toxic smoke through the openings that are created for penetrations, and reinforce the fire-resistivity of grease and air ducts. Building safety codes may require the use of firestopping systems to restore the integrity of penetrated fire-resistive structures, or to reinforce the fire-resistivity of ductwork. Building safety codes may specify the particular firestopping system or class of firestopping systems that must be used for a particular type of penetration or duct. The contractor who creates the penetration or installs the duct, or a contractor subsequently hired to install firestopping systems for existing penetrations or ducts, may install the firestopping systems.
Facilities, which may include one or more buildings, may need to demonstrate compliance with regulations requiring the installation of firestopping systems in penetrations to a regulatory agency, which may be a governmental agency, or an independent audit organization. Failure to demonstrate compliance with these regulations may lead to loss or suspension of a license, condemnation of a building, fines, or loss of funding from a source that requires compliance. As one example, health care facilities must demonstrate compliance with the firestopping standards of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) in order to receive Federal funding. Other facilities subject to regulation include schools, universities, government facilities, telecommunications facilities, factories, or the like. In any case, failure to comply with firestopping regulations or inability to demonstrate compliance with firestopping regulations may be costly for the facility, or an organization of which the facility is a part.
In order for an administrator or administrative department that oversees the facility to know whether the facility is in compliance with the relevant regulations, the administrator or administrative department may want to maintain records of all penetrations and all installed firestopping systems in the buildings of the facility. Further, in order to facilitate or expedite an inspection by a regulatory agency, the administrator or administrative department may want to produce these records to the regulatory agency. For many administrators or administrative departments, particularly those that oversee large facilities with multiple buildings, maintaining records of penetrations made and firestopping systems installed to remedy those penetrations is a time consuming task complicated by many potential problems.
For example, contractors, such as electrical or telecommunications cable installers, diagnostic equipment installers, HVAC installers, alarm installers, and the like, are often hired at the departmental level. These contractors may enter a building of the facility, create one or more penetrations, or install one or more ducts, and leave the building, all without the administrator or administrative department being aware of their presence, much less what penetrations were made or ducts were installed where, and what, if any, firestopping systems were installed to remedy the penetrations or reinforce the ducts. When the administrator or administrative department eventually does receive documentation of what work was done, and where it was done, that documentation may be incomplete. Further, the documentation may be received from the contractor as a paper document, such as a work order, the form of which may vary from contractor to contractor.
Significant administrative resources may be required to cull any useful information from whatever documentation is provided by contractors, follow up with the contractors to fill in any gaps in the information provided by the contractors, or periodically inspect the facility to determine what penetrations have been made, what ducts have been installed, and what firestopping systems have been installed when the information has not or cannot be received from the contractors. Moreover, the resulting records may be incomplete or disorganized, which may prevent the facility from knowing whether it is in compliance with relevant regulations, and may place the facility in peril of failing an inspection by a regulatory agency or audit organization.